Huge Black Hole May Have Turned Star into 'Spaghetti'

That is a nice artist's impression video of a star falling into a black hole.

I wonder what, if any, spectral or other trait tipped these astrophysicists into thinking this was not a supernova. If nothing differentiates these methods of stellar death then might this change our perception of stellar evolution that results in a supernova?

Their light curves serve to differentiate among the various types of supernovae, but this one's light curve didn't follow any of those, not to mention its extraordinary brightness even by supernova standards.

Also some types of supernovae (such as type II) dissipate much of their energy in the form of neutrinos. Type II are the brightest supernovae at optical wavelengths but, even so, the light emitted often represents less than 3% of the total energy released; the rest as a giant pulse of neutrinos, so I'm wondering what the world's neutrino observatories saw that might corroborate the shredded-star hypothesis? Possibly nothing?

The 'tidal disruption' shown in the video is not really accurate. The star does not remain intact, leaving a trail like meteor might when plunging through Earth's atmosphere. More of an "artist's conception" perhaps? Supercomputer simulations based on the actual physics of a disruption show quite a different picture; something more like this:

I was wondering about that too. Very nice. Thanks

Supermassive black holes seem capable of turning nouns into new past participles too: <...spaghettified...>....

Any word can be verbed!

What a wonderful language.

If black holes are black because of their tremendous gravity, are white holes white because of their tremendous levity?

Have you ever seen a white hole? It would almost seem that looking into the "event horizon" of a white hole, one would be highly repulsed. Or rather blown away?

I thought the big bang was the only known white hole.

So that is what happens when the universe is swallowed by the final black hole, and spit out the other end? Shirley, there has to be an end to the hole somewhere. I think there is more than one hole in that theory?

Maybe, the better question should be, do black-holes ever totally (fill-up)?...

They don't fill, they get bigger, like my cousin Luigi.

No, but they love spaghetti!

You sparked a curious question in me. If a black hole is given enough anti-matter can enough matter be annihilated for it cease to be a black hole?

No, because the reaction products (gamma rays and neutrinos) would have the same equivalent mass as the original matter + antimatter and it would remain a black hole. Regardless of what happened inside it cannot escape and so the BH would only get bigger and more massive by the amount of antimatter added.

It's hard to say what ordinary matter (and energy) 'becomes' at the singularity at a black hole's centre. Whatever 'it' is, it has mass, certainly, and black holes can have net angular momentum and electric charge, but infalling matter and energy may not retain their identity as such once they become part of the singularity. Would matter and antimatter even be distinguishable from each other by that point? I don't know.

I thank you for giving my question serious consideration...

Neal deGrasse Tyson's Death by Black Hole describes this.

I don't know but it (almost) burned out my computer screen due to high gamma.

Maybe you should try to contact Dr. Bruce Banner. I've heard that he is quite the expert on high-level gamma exposure...

There are two kinds of gamma - one is the screen brightness gain, the other is photons of ionizing radiation. I was referring to the former, not the latter. But thanks for the reminder. I am mostly myself today, not the green guy.

If you're not, then who is?...

Or, has that job been outsourced too?...

I am sort of managing my nicotine deficient raging, and have been warned, so yes, it has been outsourced.